Aunt Eleanor's Journal, January 13, 1982

The following journal entry tells of her time in Minneapolis about 1923 or so.

Jan. 13, 1982

Here I sit twiddling my thumbs nothing to do. What better time to sit down and write in here. We have had some record breaking cold the past few days, not just here in Minnesota but all thru the central and eastern part of our nation and in Europe too. Hard winter so far in 1982.

Well to go back to the past. I stayed at Grandmothers for about a month then I went back to Minneapolis to look for work. Times were hard, work was or I should say jobs were scarce. I stayed that the Lutheran Hospice there I met a girl named Leona who had a sister named Violet. Violet and I were both looking for work. I finally got a job with the Savage Co putting addresses on catalogs. It only lasted 2 weeks and there I was again pounding the side walk, wearing out my shoes, broke, and rather hungry. Violet and I had taken a room in an apartment building on Hennepin Ave. near the Public Library that was on 11^th St. at that time. I had to write to my Mother for money to pay the rent and when that was used up Violet and I had still no jobs. I wrote again and when Mother sent me some more money she said “if you don’t find work come home” I didn’t want to do that so we tramped the streets some more. One day Violet and I had a nickel between us. We bought a banana and split it that was our food for that day. We met some young men who worked in a bakery and one evening we stopped in at the bakery and they gave us some rolls. I guess it must have been a matter of a month or so that things were bad. Violets sister Leona helped us a couple of times. One evening when we were walking to our room we were talking about where we would go to sign up for work the next day, some young lads were walking right behind us and overheard what we were saying. One of them asked me if I wanted work. He said he knew of a job opening I wasn’t too impressed but he insisted. His sister worked at this place and she was quiting. He gave me the address and got a note from his sister for me to give to the boss of this place, saying she knew me. The next day I went there and I was hired. That was the “Minneapolis Pleating and Button Co. Our problems were solved. Funny but the Lord must have put those young men behind us that evening to hear us talking about our troubles and they were ready to give the help we needed. The one who spoke to me was Jim Toohy and his brother who was along was Bill. I got to know their sister too. Very nice family. This was the middle of April. I had eaten so very little for most of a month that the second day I was at work I fainted away and I was sent home. Violet and I stopped in at a little restaurant close to where we lived and asked the owner if we could charge a meal ticket till payday he was very kind and we finally got meals twice a day. From then on things improved. Violet got a job in the kitchen in a Hospital. I enjoyed my work at the Button factory. There is where I got acquainted with Helen Church and many others. We used to go swimming, skating, tobogganing, dancing, hiking and to the movies. In Aug. that next summer Ned returned from the Marine Service and we started seeing each other than he went to Swanburg and we corresponded. We made plans to get married on my birthday but gave that up because of financial circumstances, and he went to Butterfield in southern Minnesota{thats where the Stoutenburgs came from} there he spent most of the winter with relatives there. In the spring he came back to Minneapolis and got a job at the Minneapolis Rubber Co., On June 13, 1925 we were married in a Lutheran parsonage at 912 21^stave. So. and we lived with Joe and Mable Castle for a few months. I had been boarding with them for several months, Violet had married and so I gave up living in a room and eating out and went to live with the Castles. Thats how it happened we moved in with them. It didn’t last long because Mabel was left with all the work, while I worked away from home. Mabel’s brother Bill Denson was married to Florence who worked at the Button Factory and they wanted Ned and me to rent an apartment with them and seeing we both worked the same hours and all, we thot that would be better and our 1^st move was made. We got an apt. on 4^th ave. right on the street car line and the noise of those streetcars all nite long left something to be desired so in a few weeks we made move number 2 to an apartment on 24^th and Emerson Ave So. We managed to live there thru the winter, but in the spring Bill and Florence decide to move to a farm in Cedar Minn.and Ned and I finally moved into an apartment by ourselves on 24^thand 1^st ave. So. that was move number 3. While there we bought a living room set and our own dishes, pots and pans, always before that we had used what belonged to others. We lived in this place for quite a while. Helen and Orville got married and they rented the apartment next to ours. We had many happy times while there. Ned changed jobs at this time. He got in with the Firestone Co. and traveled all over the states of Wis. no. and so Dak. and Minnesota. It wasn’t long till he wanted me to quit my job so I would be at home when he came in and also I could go along on some of the trips. I quit and I did go along on many of the trips. I enjoyed that. Things were going great and in Aug. of 1927, Helen and Orville Ned and I made move no. 4 to a house near the Veterans Hosp. We didn’t stay there too long tho. For some reason or the other we decided we wanted to be closer to down town. I was pregnant and I felt pretty sick most of the time. Helen had increased her family by 2 Audrey and Donald she worked and I took care of the little ones during the day. It got too hard for me so Helens folks took Audrey and I took care of Donald.

Helen’s folks kept Audrey and raised her. At this time, Bertha came to stay with us and go to school. She went to Roosevelt. Well we made the move (move no. 4) to a nice home on 3437^th and 39^thave So. and that’s where we lived until May when we made move no. 5 and then we lived by ourselves. Edward was born at 3437. We didn’t move far only into the next block and it was in May. As soon as school was out Bertha went home but Leola was with us. She came down to be with me when Edward was born. We had waited 2 years and 9 months for this baby and he truly was so very much wanted. And prayed for. To be continued.

To be continued...

Aunt Eleanor's Journal, December 25, 1981

Aunt Eleanor wrote the first entry in her journal just after Thanksgiving 1981. She wrote her next entry on the night of December 25, 1981. As I read her journal, she seemed to write in it after she had visited her family.

When I transcribed her journal, I typed what I saw. In some cases, Aunt Eleanor added comments within a pair of parenthesis. Occasionally I added comments to clarify things. These comments are included within a pair of braces {}.

Christmas Day nite Dec. 25, 1981

I will write a few more lines in here tonite. I was at Diannes last evening, joining her family on Christmas eve, and today I was with Edward and June at Pamela’s. All of them except Eddie and Jan were there.

I’m thinking of the many Christmas’ in the past when Santa was such a hero. How we waited fro Christmas to come and what fun we would have visiting with the neighbors, it was one big dinner after the other. We would always gather round the piano or organ and sign our hearts out also had skating and sliding parties and sleigh rides. The horses were always decked out with sleigh bells and as they trotted merrily along the bells would ring out so cheerfully. Santa was very real till I was seven years old when I found out he was a hoax but it didn’t stop us from hanging out stockings and as long as I was at home Santa always left something in them. My father and Mother made very sure tho that we knew what Christmas really was, and there was a truly sacred atmosphere there which seems to be missing in so many homes today.

Another event that thrilled us no end was the Christmas program at the little school house. Well it was all so much fun and life was so carefree and gay but years passed and in 1917 we lost out dear Father. He died of anemia on June 28. It seemed that life could hardly go on but of course it did but never quite the same.

That summer Mother, Mrs. Peterson {Nora’s Mother} and Uncle Theodore {my cousin Isadora’s father} decided it was time that we girls should take confirmation lessons so every Thursday Leola, Nora, Isadora and I would ride into Pine River with the mail man and meet with the school principle and go over our lesson. We were good students because in just a couple of months we were all confirmed. It was during the Time we were riding with the mail man that we first saw two young men who used to come out to their mail box to get the mail. We girls were quite smitten and all four of us rather claimed them. Nothing came of it tho and the next summer I went to Wisconson to help in my uncle Louis Hemness’ general store. That summer on the 4^th of July I went to my first dance and from then on I was dance goofy. Dancing and singing were my great pastimes. It was also at that time that I got letters from Nora, Isadora and Leola telling me that they had met those boys who always met the mail man and I would get reports of all the fun they were having at parties. I wrote back that they had better not think they could have the one named Neddy cause I was going to have him. Well I didn’t really get him until 1925 that was seven years later. I stayed at my Grandmother’s later on in the summer of 1918 and worked at a little store in Martell until just before Thanksgiving Day, then I went home and came down the flu. I gave it to every member of the family but I was hit the hardest. I really was sick and it took me longer to recover. To be continued.

Jan. 2, 1982

This is a good time to reminisce so I’ll add a few more paragraphs. It was while was staying with my grandmother that I learned a few things about her. She was such a sweet devout person. She grew up in Norway, in her youth she used to take care of sheep and she would ski seven miles to school. She like to read and every day she read in her Bible. At the time I was there she was 81 years old and she would walk up to the pasture in the morning with the cows and in the evening she would go and get them. I think it must have been at least ½ mile away. She milked the cows also took care of the chickens. Grandfather was a stone mason and when he came home he just rested. I remember he always went to bed early. I remember I couldn’t understand Grandfather, he spoke in a different dialect and so grandmother would always tell me what he said. They both spoke Norwegian.

After Grandmother grew up she became a dress maker. She had lots of pictures of ladies she had sewed for and I used to love to sit and look at them. My what fancy dresses they had on.

Well to go back to the fall of 1918, after I recovered from the flu – by the way it was the flu that caused Grandfathers death that fall so I never got to see him again. From Thanksgiving time till Feb. 28 it seems we did nothing but go to parties and dances and it was then that I met Ned and we sure had lots of fun. He made a bet with his brother Max that we would get married before he did. But he lost out on that because on the 28^th of Feb. I went to Fergus Falls and it wasn’t long till we didn’t even write to each other. My sister Leola and Max were married a year later.

I was 2½ years in Fergus taking up nursing. I didn’t finish the course because I couldn’t get along with the head nurse and her second in charge nurse. So I went to Mpls. Worked down there as a nurse maid for a year then went back home and loafed for a couple of months. In Oct. I went into Pine River to care for Mrs. George Bowman who was bedridden with inflamitory rhuematism. She was in terrible pain and was a lot of care. One of the treatments we gave her was steambaths. We borrowed someones alcohol lamp and used that to heat the water and she would sit inside the tent like deal with just her head sticking out and get steamed for 20 minutes at the time. The ones who owned the alcohol lamp needed it so we had to get another one. Mr. Bowman couldn’t find an alcohol lamp instead he got a keozine lamp. The first day I used it Mrs. Bowman said, “It looks like there is smoke coming out around my neck.” I came to examine it and sure enough black soot was coming out of the steamer. I opened it up and Mrs. Bowman was covered with the blackest soot. I had to wrap her in a blanket, get that lamp out and believe me I had a mess but we couldn’t help but laugh. It was some job to get her washed clean. I was on that case for over 2 months. Then I spent Christmas at the Stoutenburgs my sisters Emma and Bernice were there too and we had a great time. We all got books for Christmas and everybody was reading. Ned was in the marines at this time. After the holidays I went with Bernice to Martell Wis. There we stayed with Grandmother she was alone and very crippled with arthritis, so she couldn’t be alone. She was still her own sweet self reading her Bible but so bent over, she had to use a cane. Grandma and Bernice always went to bed at 9 o’clock so I had to too, but I would take the lamp and set it on the floor at the foot the bed, turn it down low so it wouldn’t bother Bernice, then I would lay on my stomack with a book right by the lamp and I would read till all hours of the night. Our cousins Erwin and Bernell came too and we had a great time that winter. The next spring I took a job taking care of Mrs Theodore Winger who was bed ridden. She and her husband and 2 bachelor sons had moved into a new home, when she got sick. It was a nice house but they didn’t have any furniture only in the kitchen and their bedrooms. There was an old phonegraph and a few records I used to play. I had an Army cot to sleep on. And the men folks did all the cooking. The same thing day after day. It was a rather dull time. I did get to leave on Sundays and there were young folks that I went out with so on Sundays we had fun. The summer passed, in August I went back to Mpls. got a job as nursemaid for Mary Hoyt age 1 year. I was there till the middle of Dec. then I got called back to Martell. My uncle Edward had fallen off a boxcar and broke his neck, he was paralyzed from the neck down. He had been taken to a chiropractor’s place in Ellsworth Wis. And he needed nurses care around the clock. My cousin Bernell and I took care of him there until after Christmas then he was transferred to a hospital in St. Paul and we went there to be with him every day. He died the first part of January. This was the uncle who never could stand me. I guess I was always goofing off too much. Its funny that it ended up that I had to care for him. I was there by his bedside when he took his last breath.

It is now 12:25 PM. Saturday or Sunday now. And I have to be ready to go to church in the morning by 9:15. So again we will leave this writing till another time.

To be continued...